tanorexia
/ˌtanəˈrɛksɪə
/noun [mass noun] informal
An obsessive desire to acquire and maintain a suntan, by natural or artificial methods: she is one of a growing number of teenagers thought to be suffering from tanorexia...
- People with tanorexia have tanned skin but look into the mirror and see themselves as too pale.
- These days there is even a term for tan addiction - tanorexia - because of the amount of young people putting themselves at risk.
- And for the first time I began to miss my old life, my old self-obsessed, narcissistic, no room-for-anyone-else-but-me kind of life filled with my own depressing issues of self-hate, loneliness and tanorexia.
Derivatives
tanorexic
/ noun & adjective ...- Lynne, a 28-year-old law student from Glasgow, is a typical tanorexic.
- A consultant psychiatrist at Parkhead Hospital in Glasgow, he has treated a number of tanorexics.
- One thinks of tanorexic women with badly-coloured hair, Latino machismo on Miami Beach, poodles and overdressed cocktails.
Origin
1980s: blend of tan1 (sense 2 of the noun) and anorexia.